A one-year-old child flying on American Airlines was struck in the head after part of the plane's ceiling collapsed
- A ceiling panel and oxygen generator fell on a one-year-old child's head on an American Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Dallas/Forth Worth International Airport on Saturday.
- The boy's mother, Jennifer Zanone, was frustrated by the airline's response to the incident.
- While she declined when the airline offered medical assistance, she was unable to get the airline to document the incident while she was at the airport.
A ceiling panel and oxygen generator fell on a one-year-old child's head on an American Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Saturday.
Flight 126 had just landed when the panel hit the boy's head, the boy's mother, Jennifer Zanone, said. While Zanone declined when American Airlines offered medical assistance, she was unable to get the airline to document the incident while she was at the airport. Zanone said she is frustrated at the airline's response.
"I didn't realize that declining medical attention immediately following the incident meant that the airline would ignore me for the 2 hours following the incident," she wrote to Business Insider. "I repeatedly requested to speak to a supervisor to understand more about next steps and what to do and how to document the incident (something the flight attendant told me they would do after deplaning) and were told they were busy."
Zanone said that an American Airlines customer service agent was unable to reach a supervisor by phone over a 90-minute period. Once Zanone posted about the incident to Facebook, an airline representative reached out and told her she would receive an incident report via email. As of Monday, morning, Zanone said she had not received the report.
"I never received any assistance or correspondence from American while I was in Dallas," she said. "Only after posting to social media did I receive a phone call yesterday morning notifying me that an email will follow with the incident report and I have not received any email correspondence from American at this time."
An American Airlines representative told Business Insider that the airline spoke with Zanone "to offer additional support and details of what transpired at Dallas/Forth Worth Saturday" and confirmed that she declined the airline's request for medical assistance after the flight.
"American's primary concern is for the Zanone family and their young child," the airline said in a statement. "Our Dallas/Fort Worth and Tech Ops teams are also working to gather more information and facts surrounding this unfortunate incident."